by Felipe Rosa
Michael Clayton: upon review, without misplaced expectations, this is a more interesting movie. Anchored by solid performances and an appealing visual sense, but its highest point are two of Tom Wilkinson’s (mostly offscreen) speeches.
Categories: Film reviews • Tags: drama
by Felipe Rosa
Fast Five: dumb fun, and it would be dumber to expect more. It’s a guilty pleasure for sure, especially for stating that you either have to be a criminal (or a parrot) to want to go to Rio de Janeiro. It still bugs me that they have to use Spanish speaking actors, however. At least the radio chatter and street-speaking was in proper Portuguese.
Categories: Film reviews • Tags: action
by Felipe Rosa
Heaven Can Wait: there is a reason Ernst Lubitsch has a touch to his name, and while it may not be easy to explain, when one sees it one recognizes it. This is a great example of his wit and delicacy, and a great way to tell a story that may sound banal. The cast works perfectly, and it’s always a pleasure to see Charles Coburn working.
Categories: Film reviews • Tags: comedy, drama
by Felipe Rosa
13 Assassins: as far as action movies go, this is top-notch; nevermind that the action is appropriately old-fashioned, since this is a quite traditional samurai film. It also has a bit more to say than the usual action fare; it deals quite beautifully with the “two sides of the same coin”. But, with so many characters and so little time, a lot of them feel too generic.
Categories: Film reviews • Tags: action
by Felipe Rosa
The Red Violin: while the whole is nice enough, and the structure is interesting, some of the segments are a bit sub-par, which detracts from the whole. Also, the choice to run the auction scene over and over again from the different perspectives is a bit excessive. After we understand what’s going on, it could have been cut down. Great great music, it should be mentioned.
Categories: Film reviews • Tags: drama
by Felipe Rosa
Water for Elephants: just plain uninteresting, bordering the boring, even. The story is just not very gripping, the characters are not at all well built. The better character arch belongs to the elephant, probably for the first time since Dumbo.
Categories: Film reviews • Tags: drama
by Felipe Rosa
Hanna: a little bit of discomfort with such a violent (if not that graphical) film featuring such a young main character. However, the strong cast (top to bottom) and the very fluid camera work (in particular the lovely tracking shot -or two, but well masked- that goes from the bus station to the subway station) makes this more interesting than the regular actioner.
Categories: Film reviews • Tags: action
by Felipe Rosa
Rio: visually beautiful, the music is (for the most part) quite nice, but the story is disappointing. The stereotypes were not as bad as I expected, but as expected they were still there. In short, fun, but not to par with the best out there.
Categories: Film reviews • Tags: adventure, animation, comedy
by Felipe Rosa
The Wolfman: not much in this movie in addition to the excessively showy, but well-done makeup work. The story is just a shred, really; an excuse for very graphical scenes of a wolfman having its teethy fun. I remember when most of the cast worked in decent movies; one has to pay their bills, I suppose.
Categories: Film reviews • Tags: horror
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